"Pain remembers what the mind tries to forget."
Aarav didn't move.
Couldn't.
The words echoed far louder than the tremor that had cracked the earth minutes before. They replayed in his skull like a memory he hadn't lived yet—a truth that felt too heavy to belong in the present. _He wants you to become him._ The implication wrapped around his ribs with cold fingers, squeezing until breathing felt more like a suggestion than a requirement. Even the ground beneath him seemed to shift subtly, as if reacting to the storm inside him. The world had changed shape since sunrise—and it was doing it specifically for him.
_He wants you to become him._
The air felt too thin. The sky too wide. The ground too unsteady, as if even the land was waiting for his reaction. Every sound seemed distant: the wind brushing through brittle grass, the faint creaking of Arin's staff, Meera's breath catching in her throat. It was like the world had stepped three inches back from him, making space for the weight of the truth that had just been set down at his feet.
Meera stepped closer, voice low. "Aarav… breathe." Her eyes softened—not pitying, but grounding, her presence a familiar anchor against the rising tide of fear. She held onto his sleeve like she was afraid the world might literally pull him away if she didn't.
Amar stayed at his side, jaw tight, gaze fixed on Arin as if daring him to say anything worse. His stance wasn't just protective—it was confrontational, a warning of what he'd do if anything else tried to reach for Aarav. The knife in his hand gleamed faintly in the dying light.
Arin straightened with visible effort. The tremor and the sealing of the fracture had drained him—his staff shook faintly as he leaned on it, breath uneven. His shoulders sagged beneath invisible weight, the lines on his face deepening with fatigue. "You need answers," Arin said. "And you'll get them. But not here."
Meera gestured at the boundary stone, still cracked, still faintly warm. "Why not? This place clearly reacts to him. Isn't that the point?" She reached toward the stone again, stopping just short of touching it. Even she seemed wary of the lingering hum that hovered around it like static.
Arin shook his head. "This place remembers him. That's not the same as guiding him. Boundaries are dangerous for an untrained Anchor. They pull, they echo, they try to align." His voice softened on the last word. "And alignment is the last thing we want right now."
Aarav found his voice, rough and unsteady. "Tell me what that meant. The symbol. The voice. Why would he—" His throat tightened. "Why would the Voided King know me?" The idea gnawed at his insides. The Voided King wasn't a person to be noticed by. He was a myth. A warning. A name whispered to make children behave. And yet the voice had said his name like it was owed to him.
Arin met his eyes. "Because Anchors recognize Anchors. Even across centuries. Even across layers of reality." His tone carried no exaggeration, only weary truth.
Aarav's pulse hammered. "I'm nothing like him."
"Not yet," Arin said quietly. "But the path that broke him begins the same way yours has." His gaze flicked briefly toward the sealed fracture, as if remembering something too painful to recount.
Silence. Heavy, suffocating. It pressed on their shoulders like dust settling in an abandoned hall.
Amar stepped in front of Aarav, jaw clenched. "Enough riddles. If he's in danger, he deserves the full truth." He stood tall, almost daring Arin to contradict him. His protectiveness was a shield, a line in the earth.
Meera's voice trembled with restrained fury. "No more fragments. No more metaphors. Tell him what you know." The way she said it wasn't a request—it was an ultimatum.
Arin looked at them—the determined protector, the relentless thinker, the boy with resonance in his bones—and something softened in his expression. Not pity. Not fear. Something closer to regret. Regret shaped from decisions made long before they arrived here. Regret that had been waiting for this moment.
"Very well," Arin said. "Then listen carefully." His words dropped like stones into still water.
He turned toward the cracked boundary stone and placed his hand over the center. Even that gentle touch made the carvings tremble faintly, like an old muscle remembering how to move.
The stone responded instantly, glowing faintly under his touch. Wisps of pale light gathered around his fingers, tracing the grooves like fireflies following a familiar path. The boundary seemed almost eager to speak when touched by someone who knew how to ask.
"This," Arin said, "is a memory lock. A vault. A recording left by the Forerunners before they fell. Anchors like you were central to their world. They believed emotion was power, truth was structure, memory was foundation. Anchors held the pattern together. They carried the weight so the world didn't shatter."
Aarav swallowed hard. "And him? The Voided King?" The name felt heavier now, like it wasn't just a title but a consequence.
Arin's voice grew quiet. "He was the strongest of them. The brightest. The one who believed he could hold everything alone." His eyes drifted to the horizon, as if seeing a memory instead of the field.
Meera whispered, "Until he broke." Her voice wavered—not with fear, but with the dawning horror of a scholar realizing how much of history had been hidden.
"Not just broke," Arin said. "Shattered. The world's resonance poured through him until he was nothing but order and grief. He ascended into the layer above this one—a place where emotion becomes code. Where memory becomes weapon. Where truth calcifies." He glanced at Aarav. "Where Anchors go when they lose themselves."
Aarav's stomach twisted. "I'm not going to break." He said it too fast, too sharp, as if speed alone made it true.
"No one ever thinks they will," Arin murmured. His gaze carried the weight of witnessing too many anchors fall.
A low wind swept across the field, carrying the scent of dust and old stone. The clouds drifted overhead, shadows sliding over the cracked boundary circle. The day dimmed further, turning the place into a twilight memory.
Arin lifted his staff. "We need to move. The fracture will draw attention—maybe from his remnants, maybe from something worse."
"Worse?" Amar echoed, voice flat with disbelief. Worse than the Voided King felt like a contradiction.
"The world is full of things that recognize Anchors the way wolves recognize wounded prey," Arin said. "And right now, he,"—Arin nodded at Aarav—"is glowing like a signal fire." His voice was both warning and worry.
Aarav felt his chest tighten. "Where are you taking us?"
Arin gestured eastward, toward the faint shimmer of distant hills.
"To a place that won't tear itself open when you breathe. A place old enough to hold its silence." His tone held a strange mix of urgency and reverence.
Meera took Aarav's hand, grounding him. "We're with you. That doesn't change." The promise settled over him like a blanket against cold.
Amar nodded. "Where he goes, we go." Simple. Solid. True.
Aarav wasn't sure whether to be grateful or terrified. The hum inside him flickered like a candle beneath a draft. He didn't know what was rising from beneath the world, or why echoes knew his name, or why a being lost to history was noticing him.
But as he stepped away from the boundary stone, he felt the truth settle inside him:
The world wasn't shaking because it was breaking.
It was shaking because it was waking.
And it was waking for him.
As they walked, Aarav didn't look back at the fracture.
He didn't need to.
Because he could feel something behind them
watching
waiting
remembering.
"In the quiet after the vision, he realized the memory had been waiting to be seen."